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However given the success of the swift measures to ease world monetary

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However, given the success of the swift measures to ease world monetary policy, global financial wealth has now repaired all of its losses, returning to the peak levels recorded in July.Once again, this closely replicates the behaviour of markets in 1987. Furthermore, the dangers of a prolonged credit crunch in the banking system have obviously receded sharply.Does this mean that the central banks were mistaken to ease policy, just as they were in 1987? Fortunately, the answer to this question is "no".First, the prime duty of a central bank is to ensure the integrity of its financial system, and act as lender of last resort if necessary. The size and unusual nature of the interest rate cuts introduced in the UK and US in recent weeks effectively signalled that the central banks were willing to provide liquidity to the financial system as required. Confidence therefore returned to the private sector, and this made it unnecessary for the central banks to act formally as lender of last resort - for example by opening the US discount window. This was a mission successfully accomplished, not a cause for complaint.

Had they failed to act, the central banks would have been accused of a much more serious crime - fiddling while their financial sectors burned.Second, the exceptionally low rate of inflation now visible in the world economy means that the risk/return trade-off for central bankers looks very different from 1987. Then, the inflation rate in OECD economies was over 3 per cent and rising markedly. Now, the inflation rate is under 1 per cent - measured by GDP deflators - and is falling gradually. As Alan Greenspan, the US Federal Reserve chairman, has repeatedly argued, this means that mistakes made in an expansionary direction are unlikely to prove too costly, while mistakes made in a contractionary direction could tip the world into outright deflation. Eddie George, Governor of the Bank of England and for so long an inflation hawk, has also shown a ready understanding that things have changed.Third, there is the question of what was likely to happen to the economy in the absence of financial shocks, based on the underlying momentum of consumer and business conditions.

In this respect, there are some sharp differences between the present situation and 1987.These differences do not relate to the consumer sector, where confidence is fairly high at present, just as it was prior to the crash in 1987. Rather, the differences relate to business confidence, which is much weaker now than it was 11 years ago. The impact of shocks from emerging markets, taken together with the fact that real interest rates have been rising in many countries (especially in non-Japan Asia, where monetary easing has been most needed), has resulted in global business confidence falling sharply for the last 12 months It now stands about one standard deviation below normal. By contrast, in 1987 global business conditions were booming ahead of the stockmarket crash, and monetary policy clearly needed to be tightened considerably to bring this under control.This implies the following. Even if, as in 1987, recent financial shocks prove to have no effect on world economic conditions, the outcome on this occasion should be markedly different, with the underlying weakness in business conditions taking its toll on GDP growth next year, rather than fuelling a major acceleration in growth as in 1988. Most forecasters, including Goldman Sachs, believe that the OECD economies will be lucky to record growth as high as 1.5 per cent next year. Some believe that the UK will be lucky to record zero.Overall, therefore, it seems unlikely that the central banks have repeated their 1987 mistake by easing monetary policy inappropriately in response to a temporary stockmarket crash.

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